


Sweet Dreams

by TriffidsandCuckoos



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Episode: s02e01 A Scandal in Belgravia, F/M, Kissing in a morgue, Missing Scene, Possessive Behavior, References to off-screen murder, References to off-screen torture, So basically Moriarty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-25
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 21:51:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/654778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moriarty comes to see if Irene's really dead, and finds someone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Set during _Scandal in Belgravia_ , directly after Sherlock visiting the morgue at Christmas.
> 
> Written between the airings of _Scandal_ and _Reichenbach_ , and originally published on my LJ 15th January 2012.

Nothing gives you an insight into the state of your own life quite like realising you’re jealous of a corpse.

Not just any corpse either, but one which obviously died in a pretty awful way. Awful for her of course; Molly’s seen much worse on the slab. Just not usually at Christmas.

But that’s what Sherlock Holmes has made her: a pathetic, ashamed, immature little girl at work standing over a body at Christmas and sort of wishing that was her just to get that expression from him just once.

She’d drink, except she only ever has one and that’s when she’s out with work; she’d have a cigarette with Him outside, except she’s never smoked in her life and he’d know exactly what she was doing. Besides, she wouldn’t dare. There are a lot of things she wouldn’t dare to do, come to think of it. Somehow she blinked and this is her life and she missed all the bits where you take risks. Too late now though.

At least, that’s what she thinks.

Funnily enough – because her life is just one big joke – she’s not even all that surprised when she looks up to see Jim standing on the other side of the table. Because why not add insult to injury? All her humiliations together in one neat package.

“Hi there, doll,” he drawls. “Long time no see.”

He looks different. He sounds different. He’s dressed in a suit, not unlike the one Sherlock swept out of here in – deliberate? – and his voice… She sighs. They’d interviewed her, of course they did, question after question and looking more exasperated all the time, so it’s not as if she doesn’t know that she was dating a criminal mastermind for a month (and it was the most stable relationship she’s ever had, but she didn’t tell the police that because, well, why would she?). There’s something, yes, different about experiencing the reality of it. Jim from IT really didn’t exist.

She doesn’t say that though. Instead, because it’s her and Molly always acts like this even when she doesn’t want to, she comes over all flustered and manages a quick “Hi.”

He doesn’t look impressed. Men never do.

“Um, what brings you here?” she asks lightly, as if he isn’t a liar and a murderer and she shouldn’t be calling the police right this very instant if she values her life. (Except she doesn’t.)

He frowns, ever so slightly, a slight line between his eyes. Unlike Sherlock, apparently he doesn’t think out loud. Molly doesn’t feel the need to fill the silence, and that’s nice.

“Well, I had hoped to renew an acquaintance. Didn’t realise there’d be two.” Without waiting for permission or even a reaction, he pulls back the sheet, looks at the mashed-in face for a beat, then pulls the rest of the sheet back. Suddenly Molly really wishes she was this woman, whoever she was, to have both of these men recognise her that way.

“Flashy’s only good for some, doll,” Moriarty murmurs – yes, she has to call him that, because Jim’s someone else (technically several someone elses) and she doesn’t know him. She startles a bit at his words, and he looks up at her with a wide predatory grin as he replaces the sheet. “You are being a bit obvious, don’t look so surprised.”

It’s funny, how he says that word. Funny-odd. It’s not offensive, like when Sherlock says it to the police (not to her, but then he doesn’t really listen to her enough to notice), it’s…something else.

“It’s just, well, should’ve known he’d go for someone like her, shouldn’t I?” she says with a slightly high-pitched fake giggle – gives her away every time and she hates it but she can’t stop doing it – and she realises that she’s confiding in her sociopathic mass murdering former-fake-boyfriend.

Makes a change from her cat.

“I mean,” she goes on, because apparently she wants to talk now, despite the fact that Moriarty is looking at her and she can’t tell what his expression he is, “she’s not exactly me, is she?” And she laughs again, trying not to sound desperate and unable to stop herself. She’d wish she could die, except with him in the room, that’s actually a possibility. That might be good or it might be bad. So she looks at the body, and tries not to hate somebody who died like this.

“No, you’re right. Who’d notice you? People notice women like Ms Adler here, all flash and sparkle and glitzy edges ‘til you could just fucking murder her.” Molly looks at him then, and something must give her away – it always does – because he looks back, and there’s this thing with his eyebrow like he’s saying something and she almost understands it, like when she finds a new Latin term, the meaning so close like an echo and she just has to think enough. “But you, doll,” and he smiles, reaches out across the body, and she doesn’t even flinch when she feels cold fingers against her chin, “you’re nobody. Anonymous. No-one’s ever even looked at you twice, not really. You’re just a face, barely even a name.”

It should hurt. If he was Sherlock, saying those exact same words, she would want to run away and cry.

But from him…

There’s that echo again. Clearer. It’s as if Moriarty’s slowly coming into focus. Sherlock’s words hurt because he doesn’t care, or worse when he does, and words can sound so different depending on who’s saying them. When Moriarty says anonymous, it doesn’t sound like an insult. It sounds like the opposite.

Molly remembers how the police acted. They didn’t know Moriarty. At all. She remembers how Sherlock would talk about it, months ago, when he was waiting and didn’t care she was in the room. Before Sherlock, and before John wrote about the pool on his blog – Molly reads it but doesn’t comment anymore, doesn’t want to think about how either of them would reply – Moriarty was nobody. Like her.

Like her.

Slowly she realises that she should have said something. The silence has started stretching out, something that always makes her feel uncomfortable, like she has to fill it with any words that drop into her head, except this time she doesn’t. It’s like with him there’s already something filling the silence. He doesn’t talk as much as Sherlock.

Also, she realises she’s leaning into his touch. And he’s just watching her.

“I skinned a man two weeks ago,” he tells her, matter-of-fact, in the same way, come to think of it, that Molly used to tell people that today at work there was a woman who’d been dissected before the police ever got there or a man who’d jumped and was really barely a man anymore – before someone finally cracked and told (didn’t even ask) her not to. “What do you make of that?”

“Why?” is the first thing that comes to her mind and her mouth before she can stop it. His fingers don’t move, and she’s glad.

Tiny quirk of the mouth. Might be a real smile. “He lied to me.”

She should be shocked and appalled. Then again, she should have done something other than just listen to him a while ago. She seems to be always thinking about what she should do. Instead she meets his eyes and asks, “Did he deserve it?”

“You don’t know what he lied about.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” she responds, blushing at how bold she’s being. Maybe it’s the fact that her self-esteem has been beaten into the ground today, hung up for all to see and turn away in embarrassment; maybe it’s how the chances of her escaping if he really wants to hurt her, if he already made up his mind, are so very very low.

He’s looking at her closely, so very closely, and it’s nice. Nice to be looked at. His fingers move, tracing the line of her face, and she waits. He never came down here when he was Jim from IT, she thinks. Maybe he couldn’t have hidden around all the dead. In the suit, as Moriarty, he looks like he belongs.

“MollyMollyMolly,” he mutters, turning her name into nonsense, or whatever sense he wants to make of it. “People never notice you, do they?”

Before she can reply, or figure out how to reply, those fingers take a slightly firmer grip and guide her forwards – and it is guiding, because she goes willingly, lamb to slaughter most likely because she would be the sort of girl to turn up on the news killed by this man and why can’t she care anymore? Is she that desperate? That lost? That earnest for something, anything, to make her life into the better that she’s been waiting for?

Doesn’t matter. All that matter is, their lips meet, and his hand moves around the back of her head, pushing into her hair, holding her there as if she’d try to get away.

At first it’s just a touch, a brush of the lips, except it’s not just that, because at that touch it’s as if something opens up inside her, something hungry, and she just might be doomed. And instead of pulling away she pushes, pushes and opens her mouth and he lets out a low growl, and his grip on her tightens. She’s not sure what to do with her hands, so she just grips the edge of the table and gives him the control. He’d take it anyway.

That’s the thing, she realises: he’ll take anything he wants, and she wants to let him. And she’s not even sure why.

Sherlock?

As if he can read her mind – and really, why not, it would make as much sense as anything else – he pulls away long enough to growl again, against her lips, and with low words, “Don’t you dare think about him. Not with me. I’ve killed for less.”

Just for a moment she tries to move towards him, and finds herself instead pulled further away, so that he can look her in the eye. His eyes are dark, dangerous. “I will kill you slow,” he hisses “if for one second you think about him.”

She meets his gaze. She pauses long enough that he knows that she’s heard him, that she understands. Then she nods. “Why would I?” she asks, and suddenly her voice sounds different too. Maybe she’s hearing it in a slightly detached way, but it sounds more…confident than it ever did with Sherlock.

He smiles again, just like that, darkness gone from all but his eyes. (Did she ever look into his eyes back then? Did she always know, or does she just like to think that?) “Excellent answer.” And without anything else, he kisses her again, harder, possessive. She thinks maybe she likes that, and wonders what it says about her. The part of her that reads romantic novels and secretly likes them thinks it’s like he’s trying to suck out her soul through this kiss; the more sensible part, the voice which told her not to wear that ridiculous dress tonight, says that’s nonsense. But it’s good nonsense. And it leaves her breathless.

He stops. He doesn’t pull away, he just stops, lingering close enough that she can feel him smile against her lips, feel the words as much as hear them. “Well, look at you. Look at yourself.”

This time she’s the one to move away, ever so slightly, to see the cruel edge of the smile. “What?”

“Wouldn’t have pegged you for the type to kiss over a corpse. You’re just full of surprises.”

Now she jerks away, hand coming up to cover her mouth as she remembers. She looks down at the body and can’t believe what she just did. Who kisses around the dead? Who likes it?

He’s laughing at her. She’s too distracted to tell whether or not it’s fake. She’s out of sync with him again, back into the real world, where things like morals and propriety actually mean something. Of course, she’s used to being laughed at out here.

“Oh, now you are being boring,” he scolds her, still with the mocking laughter in his voice, and she thinks of Sherlock again, despite what she said, because it’s hard at the point where they start crossing over. She wonders if John has this problem; wonders why she’s thinking that. Moriarty tuts though, actually wags his finger. Well, she knew he was a better performer. “Expected better, doll, I really did. But then, I guess you are just normal, aren’t you?”

He’s not being `dark` or camp. He’s just being cruel. Is this him being himself? She shouldn’t find that flattering, should she?

He starts walking away, backwards, smiling the way he does, never reaching his eyes. “Didn’t even come to see you,” he tells her. “Came to see if she’d stopped being so irritating.”

Of course he didn’t. Why would anybody want to see her when there’s this woman around? “She’s dead.”

“She’s dead,” he agrees, pointing at the body. “Unfortunately, not the she I’m looking for.” He shakes his head, looking disappointed. “Not that Sherly’ll see that. He’s just so easy these days. Still, guess this means I still get to kill her, so that’s something.

“Good to see you though, doll. I’ll look you up. We might have a thing after all.”

He’s going to go. Leave her hanging. Now that he’s seen how easy she’ll be, how vulnerable, how desperate. Molly’s never exactly liked herself, but now she hates herself enough to see what’s going on. She worked as a disguise before; she’ll work again. One little victory in their war, and a petty one at that. And she’ll let him, because Sherlock doesn’t want her and she wants to feel like she’s worth something. She’s always been the passive one, afraid to start anything. When she tries, she’s just clichéd; not herself.

She bites her lip. She might die in ten seconds. She’ll feel actually alive for all of them though. “No.”

It wouldn’t be fair to say that he freezes. Not in the sense people tend to mean it: a slightly comedic halt. Instead he freezes the way he should: grows colder, more still, his attention honing to a point as he looks at her, then through her. And he says, “I’m sorry?” and it’s the only reason he’ll ever say the word: when he doesn’t mean it, and someone’s about to die.

“It’s not enough to say I can’t think about him,” she says, and she’s already survived longer than she’d expected, isn’t that amazing? “You can’t either.”

He narrows his eyes. “Implying?”

She tries to smile, and knows it looks pretty desperate, but can’t stop. Adrenaline does that. “Well, last time you were just using me because of him, weren’t you? I don’t want that again.”

“I’m not entirely sure what you do want, Molly Hooper,” he says. She likes it when he says her name. It sounds so much better from him.

“So there is something you don’t know.” Is she teasing him? “I was starting to wonder, you know, with you and him…” She trails off, because that’s Sherlock again. “I don’t want something where it’s all about him even though he’s not here.”

“Not even making him jealous?”

“I’m never going to manage that.” It feels good to say that. Liberating. Maybe everybody’s been right: she should just move on. Funny how it took a corpse to convince her. Well, a corpse and a psychotic ex, which probably isn’t what they had in mind either. But she’s a little bit tired of being either the sad pathetic girl or the stupid naïve dupe. And Christmas is supposed to be the magical start of something new. “I’m not John, or…her. Especially if she’s not dead.” At least now she’s not jealous of someone bludgeoned in the head.

He scowls. “I’m not a rebound. I’m not something to settle for; something less. I am more than him, you understand that?” Suddenly he’s there again, only the table between them, hands slammed down, leaning and glaring at her. “I will burn him, I will break him, and when there’s nothing else left I will carve him.”

She looks back at him; meets those eyes, full of death and anger, and thinks, I made him feel something real. 

“I know.”

“Do you?” He spits it out, almost like an animal; certainly not human.

“Yes.” She’s calmer in the face of the real him. She knows where she stands: very close to death. She doesn’t have to worry about making an idiot of herself, and she’ll die anyway. “I know you’ll beat him.” Before she can stop it, she says something she only realises at this moment: “I want you to win.”

He’s confused. She’s never felt stronger.

It takes him maybe thirty seconds to consider her, consider her words, watching her closely as if she’s fascinating, before he grins. Grins in a way she believes: harsh, savage, gleeful and possessive. Then he surges forward against her, fiercer, and while she has enough sense left not to fight back, she doesn’t just stand there either. True, she’s largely new to this sort of thing – Jim from IT wasn’t very interested, and generally her relationships haven’t been to type to be described as `passionate` or anything else – but she’s learning. She can learn.

She closes her eyes, and keeps them closed even after it stops, because he’s leaving, she can tell. It’s silly – a little girl fantasy – but she doesn’t want to see the face, to see what mask he puts on. She just wants to hear him. Besides, it’s better to be able to be honest when she says she doesn’t know where he went.

“See you around, Mol.”

She opens her eyes, and he’s gone. Like a villain from a storybook, but so much better than that. He’s real, for all that he isn’t.

Mol. Nobody’s ever called her that before. She likes it.

Sherlock’s still out there, but he doesn’t have any reason to come back in, so she doesn’t have to worry too much about the obvious clues: her already swollen lips, her dishevelled hair. Even that gives her a thrill: the idea of her and Moriarty, while Sherlock was right outside.

Okay, so they were both lying. Sherlock’s still a third party here. But it’s different, she thinks. Moriarty wasn’t looking for her, but he found her all the same. He didn’t kill her, and he didn’t dismiss her. At the end, he was interested, and that’s worth everything.

She’ll wake up tomorrow and wonder what she was thinking. Curl up into a ball, shocked and appalled at herself, and stutter and run when she sees Sherlock next.

Unless she wakes up stronger. Better.

She looks at the body and finds herself smiling.

Next time, she promises herself, she has to get his number.


End file.
